The Antifa Mob

Antifa represents the worst of the extreme left. It's true that they are not representative of the vast majority of Democrats or progressives, but what's troubling is that Democrats and progressives do very little to condemn Antifa's often violent "protests," their mob-like threatening behavior, or their extreme and often unhinged rhetoric.* Dems and their trained hamsters in the media prefer to refer to Antifa mobs as "activists" or "protestors," when they are actually violent thugs who operate under the cover of social activism and the truly ridiculous claim of anti-Fascism.

This past week an Antifa mob visited conservative commentator Tucker Carlson's residence and implicitly threatened his wife and children. Some Democrats, to their credit, condemned Antifa's actions, but far too many were either silent or tried to justify the mob's actions.

Jim Treacher comments but first quotes the chant of the Antifa mob outside Carlson's house:

"You can't hide. You're not safe. We know where you sleep."

But don't call these people an angry mob, right?

Now, how much of an actual threat are these morons? The guy with the megaphone sounds like he barely has the upper-body strength to hold up a megaphone. But their intent is clear: intimidation. If you say things they don't like, they'll find out where you live. They'll stand outside your house, yelling and screaming. If they can't convince people you're wrong, they'll just try to stop you from speaking altogether. "Anti-fascist" now means "extra-fascist."

This is an escalation from this lefty group's previous "success," yelling at Ted Cruz in a restaurant. At least that was a semi-public place. At least they didn't go to Cruz's private residence.

Yet.

You can go ahead and hate Tucker, or any other pundit, for any reason you want. I don't agree with him on everything either. That doesn't mean you need to be standing outside his house, threatening him and his family. I wouldn't do it to Jim Acosta or Chris Hayes or any other talking head I don't like.

Carlson is an aggressive interviewer and a conservative voice, but he has never suggested violence against the Left, and never questioned a leftist position without backing it up with a reasoned argument. Leftists may not agree with his positions or his reasoning, but an attempt to silence or threaten him is akin to the tactics of the very fascists that the Antifa mob claims to want to eliminate. They are either too stupid, too historically ignorant, or too extreme in their fanatic beliefs to recognize the repugnant irony of their actions.

CBS reporter (and one of the few professional journalists that remain in the main stream media) Sharyl Attkisson responded to the Antifa threats against Carlson in the following way:

@SharylAttkisson: As told in "The Smear," [her best selling book on political smears] people usually aren't targeted unless they're effective. I'm going to start watching @TuckerCarlson to see what he's doing that so worries them. They're in essence saying: he's making a difference. If it weren't so ugly, it would be a compliment.

There is nothing that Antifa does that should be construed as a compliment. They exemplify an extreme faction on the Left that is totalitarian—agree with us or we will shut you down. But they go beyond simple rhetoric and move ever-closer to outright violence. If true white supremacists on the right stood outside a residence and threatened, say, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, the media would be be gripped by hysteria in its 24-7 condemnation of Donald Trump for fostering an atmosphere in which an intelligent voice on the left is threatened by right-wing extremists.

Odd, then, that the response to Carlson's situation is so muted. Odd that no national Democratic figure (here's a suggestion—Maxine Waters—who has advocated confrontation herself) is blamed for their extreme actions. Odd ... but hardly surprising.

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* Contrast this to the universal condemnation of right-wing extremists by nationally recognized members of the GOP. And by the way, Antifa is little different in action or tactics to neo-Nazis, so any attempt to suggest that this is an apples-and-oranges comparison is intellectually dishonest.